Cookham, on the south bank of the Thames has existed as a settlement for thousands of years but the first recorded river crossing there was the Camlet Way, a Roman road.

Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who was engaged in the building of the Great Western Railway nearby, submitted designs for a cast iron suspension bridge with an estimated cost of £20,000 (equivalent to £2,378,000 today[5]).

The CBC balked at the price tag and Brunel subsequently redesigned the scheme but only to that "which I should not be ashamed to build"[4] with a revised cost of £10,000 (£1,189,000[5]).

[6] The owner of the ferry rights on the site of the new bridge, a Mr Poulton, was bought out by the CBC for £2,275 (£259,000[5]) to include "one barge with chains and rollers for the carriage of cattle and one punt with poles for the conveyance of passengers".

In Treacher's opinion the bridge was unlikely to survive the winter[8] and so a Mr Cook of Wycombe was engaged to make emergency repairs at a cost of £96 12s 2d (£12,222[5]).

[6] The repairs did little to stem the decay and only five years later in 1864 the new surveyor, a Mr Carter, described the bridge as "not dangerous but not safe" and "may subside if a heavy vehicle passes over it".

[7] By 1866 the situation had deteriorated such that the lessee asked for a reduction in rent as the toll income had fallen off due to people being too afraid to use the bridge.